Culture

Lena Waithe and the AT&T Mentorship Program Filmmakers on Telling LGBTQ+ Stories


And her goal is being met. In fact, several of the AT&T mentees count this program as their first real “Hollywood” experience. Brittany Menjivar, who wrote the short thriller Fragile.com, is a good example. “This is the first major film I’ve ever worked on and I haven’t really had any experience on a set,” she admits. “I am totally new to this process and it’s been really great knowing that somebody like Lena, who’s had so much experience in this world, is looking out for all of us. She wants to elevate all of our voices even if we don’t have connections in the industry or are just starting out.”

Another mentee, Jasmine Johnson, got her start as an intern at a weekly comedy tv series, where she was just “getting food and running errands.” Now, she’s watching as her original script for Adeline, The Great comes to life. “I am a writer who is trying to write the types of stories I needed to see when I was growing up as a fat little black girl,” she says. “I never saw myself, and when you don’t see yourself, you’re like, ‘Is there something wrong with me? Am I invisible?’ So now, I’m just going to write the people and characters I needed to see when I was little.”

Mentee,  Jasmine Johnson.

By Shayan Asgharnia.

When asked why she finds it so important to nurture the fledgling careers of diverse filmmakers, Lena Waithe answered, “The oppressor doesn’t understand what it means to be oppressed. So how can they tell their story?” Right now, there is an interest in — and more importantly, a need for — stories about different communities, and Waithe knows firsthand that these stories are best told by the people they’re about. Later, she mentions, “It’s always important for those that have been ‘othered’ to play a part in their narrative. Otherwise it’ll be fiction.”

Malakai, the director of an adventure tale called Postmarked, is aware of this. “This is a story that deals with the trans community and I am not a trans woman,” she says frankly. So both she and writer Angela Wong Carbone sought an alternative way to tell this story authentically. “It was important that, first and foremost, we were able to bring on someone who not only lived this life and knows this life, but also knows about the hardships of what it is to be a black trans woman in the community. Bringing on a consultant from the jump was just the very first thing that I thought was natural. I couldn’t tell this story without having a consultant on board.”



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